Bears Compete at New Balance Boston Twilight

May 13, 2012

Waltham, MA- While many athletes are competing at the ECAC/IC4A's hosted at Princeton, a few members of the Brown University track & field team competed at the New Balance Boston Twilight meet hosted at Bentley University on Saturday.

The meet was highlighted by a third and fourth place finish by Erik Berg (3:44.57) and Kevin Cooper (3:44.92) in the 1,500m run. Berg's third place time is now the third fastest all-time record at Brown and Cooper's fourth place was the sixth fastest in the Brown record books.

"It was a very nice showing tonight. Erik and Kevin have been ready to run fast for a while--we just needed to find the right race," said men's distance coach Tim Springfield. "It was good to see it finally happen. Both of them will qualify for the first round of the NCAA Championships with those times."

Henry Tufnell also set a record-setting mark in the 800m run as his fourth place time of 1:50.42 was good for fifth all-time in Brown history. Nathan Elder finished in 14th with a 1:55.31 and Reuben Feinman placed 21st with a 1:56.92.

"Henry took another second-and-a-half off the PR he set last week at Heps. He's really adapted well to our training here--which is very different from what he had experienced last year at high school in England," added Springfield. "He's dropped his PR over five seconds in a year, which is kind of remarkable. It's a bit of a longshot, but he might also qualify for the first round of the NCAAs with that mark. We'll find out on Monday."

On the women's side, Bree Shugarts turned in a ninth place time in the 1,500m run with a 4:27.89.

"Bree ran a tough race--the pace was erratic, which made it more difficult to run a fast mark," said Springfield. "But she still equaled her PR and ran an all-time Top 10 performance."